Dear Friends, July 7, 2019, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
“Son of Thunder” Thanksgiving
James and John asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”
I’ve long had a warm space in my heart for these two brother apostles, who Jesus named Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder,” because of their faith, their closeness to Jesus along with St. Peter, and because I also can regularly target people, places and things I believe are well deserving of some consuming fire from heaven. In fear of a divine rebuke, however, I’ll simply offer thanks to all of you who have been praying for me here and for Fr. John on his latest visit home in India. We’re all in this together at St. John the Evangelist, and continuing prayer for one another is a great blessing indeed.
Fr. John Patrick
We continue today to reflect on the Apostolic Letter of St. John Paul II on the importance of Sundays for us Catholics and how to keep it holy. He had written this lovely piece in 1998 with the title: Dies Domini. Let us set aside a little time to reflect on the following paragraphs.
CHAPTER III DIES ECCLESIAE (Continued)
The Eucharistic Assembly: Heart of Sunday
A pilgrim people
- As the Church journeys through time, the reference to Christ's Resurrection and the weekly recurrence of this solemn memorial help to remind us of the pilgrim and eschatological character of the People of God. Sunday after Sunday the Church moves towards the final "Lord's Day", that Sunday which knows no end. The expectation of Christ's coming is inscribed in the very mystery of the Church(55) and is evidenced in every Eucharistic celebration. But, with its specific remembrance of the glory of the Risen Christ, the Lord's Day recalls with greater intensity the future glory of his "return". This makes Sunday the day on which the Church, showing forth more clearly her identity as "Bride", anticipates in some sense the eschatological reality of the heavenly Jerusalem. Gathering her children into the Eucharistic assembly and teaching them to wait for the "divine Bridegroom", she engages in a kind of "exercise of desire",(56) receiving a foretaste of the joy of the new heavens and new earth, when the holy city, the new Jerusalem, will come down from God, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev 21:2).
The day of hope
- Viewed in this way, Sunday is not only the day of faith, but is also the day of Christian hope. To share in "the Lord's Supper" is to anticipate the eschatological feast of the "marriage of the Lamb" (Rev 19:9). Celebrating this memorial of Christ, risen and ascended into heaven, the Christian community waits "in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ".(57) Renewed and nourished by this intense weekly rhythm, Christian hope becomes the leaven and the light of human hope. This is why the Prayer of the Faithful responds not only to the needs of the particular Christian community but also to those of all humanity; and the Church, coming together for the Eucharistic celebration, shows to the world that she makes her own "the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anxieties of people today, especially of the poor and all those who suffer".(58) With the offering of the Sunday Eucharist, the Church crowns the witness which her children strive to offer every day of the week by proclaiming the Gospel and practising charity in the world of work and in all the many tasks of life; thus she shows forth more plainly her identity "as a sacrament, or sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of the entire human race".(59)
The table of the word
- As in every Eucharistic celebration, the Risen Lord is encountered in the Sunday assembly at the twofold table of the word and of the Bread of Life. The table of the word offers the same understanding of the history of salvation and especially of the Paschal Mystery which the Risen Jesus himself gave to his disciples: it is Christ who speaks, present as he is in his word "when Sacred Scripture is read in the Church".(60) At the table of the Bread of Life, the Risen Lord becomes really, substantially and enduringly present through the memorial of his Passion and Resurrection, and the Bread of Life is offered as a pledge of future glory. The Second Vatican Council recalled that "the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are so closely joined together that they form a single act of worship".(61) The Council also urged that "the table of the word of God be more lavishly prepared for the faithful, opening to them more abundantly the treasures of the Bible".(62) It then decreed that, in Masses of Sunday and holy days of obligation, the homily should not be omitted except for serious reasons.(63) These timely decrees were faithfully embodied in the liturgical reform, about which Paul VI wrote, commenting upon the richer offering of biblical readings on Sunday and holy days: "All this has been decreed so as to foster more and more in the faithful 'that hunger for hearing the word of the Lord' (Am 8:11) which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, spurs the People of the New Covenant on towards the perfect unity of the Church".(64)
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(55) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 48-51.
(56) "Haec est vita nostra, ut desiderando exerceamur": Saint Augustine, In Prima Ioan. Tract. 4, 6: SC 75, 232.
(57) Roman Missal, Embolism after the Lord's Prayer.
(58) Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 1.
(59) Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dominum et Vivificantem (18 May 1986), 61-64: AAS 78 (1986), 888-894.
(60) Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7; cf. 33.
(61) Ibid., 56; cf. Ordo Lectionum Missae, Praenotanda, No. 10.
(62) Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 51.
(63) Cf. ibid., 52; Code of Canon Law, Canon 767, 2; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Canon